HIKING UP SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN

IT WAS A COLORFUL BUNCH OF HIKERS ON THE TRAIL TODAY

We had a few reminders Monday night of why we avoid RV Parks if we can.  We are parked close to the overflow area & there were some kids in there last night with a boom box & heavy metal music.  Not nice!!  We have a big Class A parked across the park road from us & I figure they are big city folks.   I had set up my telescope outside before it got dark figuring on having a look at the night sky later.  Well, that was not to be.  The Class A had fired up his big 29 million watt security light & totally flooded our whole area with blinding light.  The rest of the park was in quiet darkness but this guy left that light on all night & I was afraid it would peel all the paint right off our RV.  Guess they were afraid of the dark & figured robbers would be surrounding their rig at any second.   They probably live in a big city where big security lights are the order of the day.  Moved my telescope around to the other side of our RV but was disappointed again.  Pretty much the whole western sky was wiped out because of light pollution coming up & out of Phoenix.  I just quietly packed my telescope away & that was that.  Yep, just give us the good old peaceful sanctity of the star studded black desert night sky any day.

 

EARLY MORNING SUNRISE IN THE PARK

Now, I'm not complaining about the LOST DUTCHMAN STATE PARK.  It's a nice State Park.  It's just the usual complaints I have wherever there is a gathering of people or whenever we are in a large people infested area!!  And here' a bit of sad news......This Park will be closing in early June.  Other Arizona State Parks will be closing as well.  They are already in the process of closing roadside Rest Areas.  It's quite a degenerating society we live in these days but I'm not going to throw my 2 cents worth in or I'll be sitting here ranting all night long about this whole social dilemma!!

 

KELLY TRYS TO PULL A CACTUS THORN OUT OF MOTORMOUSE'S PAW & SHE IS NOT A HAPPY LITTLE CAMPER ABOUT IT

We decided to do one of the Park's trails today so picked an easy one heading up Superstition Mountain then cutting across & coming back down again.  Not a long hike so I didn't bother with my hiking boots.  Climbed aboard the Siphon Trail at 8:45 a.m. & an hour later we had once again deviated from our planned hike & climbed a tough one thousand feet to within a thousand feet of the summit.  We always seem to have a habit of doing that.  Oh well, we do the same thing on the road as well.  It's just us!!  Turned out to be a busy trail on the way up & we got in behind a group of hikers.  I had been hoping for a quiet morning trail but it just didn't end up that way.  Oh well, I'm not the only one in this world I guess:))

 

TRAIL STARTS OUT QUIET BUT SOON A WHOLE GAGGLE OF PEOPLE CATCH UP TO US AS KELLY FIELDS A DEERPARK LODGE CALL.

I won't try to describe what a beautiful morning it was or how spectacular the panoramic views were.  Hopefully some of my photos will do that for me.  I can tell you that by the time we got back down off the mountain three & a half hours later we were too very tired, & sore, RV'ers.  Legs were rubbery, knees were barking & the bottoms of my feet felt a bit tender from all the rocks along the trail.  Remember I just had my old comfy shoe laceless running shoes on.  It was a morning of wonderment, & a morning of reminders of how truly fortunate people we are.

   

(click pics to enlarge)

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the RV just relaxing our tired muscles.  It was one of those rare afternoons when I wished we had one them there fangled hot tub thingys.  Managed to catch up on a few blogs between dozes & we renewed our stay here for a couple more days.  We don't eat out a lot but today we decided to head on down the road to a place called, Filly's for supper.  Had heard some good things about it.   Turned out it's just a popular local Roadhouse & we felt the OK food was overpriced.  I don't really much care for bar food.  We both had chicken & ribs.  Tomorrow night we plan on checking out another place called, The Mining Camp Restaurant.  Drove by it on the way back & it looks groovy:))

MET THIS COUPLE FROM BAYFIELD ON THE TRAIL............BAYFIELD, WISCONSIN THAT IS:))

Also tomorrow we plan to give our tired muscles a break & take a long driving tour along the APACHE TRAIL.  Our friends Mike & Maureen did this trip a couple years ago & it took them about 5 hours.   It is a 120 mile loop highway that promises winding mountain roads & spectacular vistas, with  lakes, a dam, & historic stops along the way.

We have 4 green bars on our Verizon connection here but the signal is weak & keeps dropping us.  Took me slightly over 2 hours to publish last night's blog.  I had to keep re-connecting.  Our Skype has not worked well either so haven't made any phone calls.  Because of the many pictures I took today I will attempt to upload them into a web album.  It's 7 o'clock right now & I haven't even begun to dig the pictures out of the cameras so I had better get rolling if I want to get to bed by midnight.  Ohhhhh, I need a holiday...............

To see all of today's photos go to our PICASA WEB ALBUM

GROANER'S CORNER:((  And a woman once said, "Men are like a fine wine.  They all start out like
grapes, and it's our job to stomp on them and
keep them in the dark until they mature into
something you'd want to have dinner with."

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

PEACEFULLY ASLEEP TONIGHT AT THE FOOT OF SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN

THERE ARE A LOT MORE FLOWERS IN BLOOM HERE THAN THERE WERE IN BORREGO SPRINGS

Despite a good night's sleep, the day did not start off well.  The gunfire started up about 8:30 a.m. & traumatized the dog's all over again.  I wasn't happy with our spot anyway because of all the usual garbage left scattered about by the locals.  I could launch into a huge rant about that right now but what's the point.   Kelly thought maybe we could change spots but I just wanted to get out of the whole area.......period!!

A group of ATV people rolled in & unloaded about half a dozen ATV's.  They told us the gunfire was coming from a gun club just up the road so that explained that, so the writing was on the wall.....we had to move!!

    (click on pics to enlarge)

Drove the rig back out the bumpy & dust covered road to the pavement.  Found a place to pull over & leave the Motorhome while we took the car & scouted out highway 60 towards Superior, Arizona.   Our 'Free Camp Grounds' book by Don Wright told us there were some spots along the highway for boondocking but we only saw a couple & they were full of ATV trailers.  We continued into the mountains & eventually came to the town of  Superior.  Continued on about 10 miles towards Globe.  Very scenic with steep mountain grades & a tunnel.  Fair bit of traffic on this road but fortunately they had many passing lanes & one run-away road in case of brake failure.  We would have continued to Globe but we knew we had to find a place to stay Monday night & turned back for the rig.

SOME MOUNTAIN SCENERY EAST OF SUPERIOR, ARIZONA

We returned to the area about noon & drove around looking for boondocking spots but just didn't like anything we saw.  Drove through the picturesque little town of Queen Valley.    Finally decided to leave Florence Junction & move on to Apache Junction.  We knew of a State Park up that way.   Figured we would take a long shot & drive up & see if we could find it.  State Parks are our second choice to boondocking & we knew because of our proximity to the large megapolis of Phoenix it was unlikely we would ever find any respectable boondocking sites.  Kelly led the way in the car & I followed in the Motorhome.  

IT'S KELLY WAITING FOR THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL TO COME THROUGH

Traffic was heavy & I kept thinking, how the hell did we get ourselves into this.  Not my idea of RVing that's for sure.  Urban sprawl everywhere.  Just south of Apache Junction Kelly spotted a mall in a place called Gold Canyon.  We had agreed to find a spot to park the rig before getting into Apache Junction & take the car to find the Lost Dutchman.  Luckily for us we pulled into a basically brand new & almost totally abandoned spacious mall.  Lots of room to leave the Motorhome.  The mall looked like another multi-million dollar business venture gone bust.  Left the doggy guys in the rig & off we went with the car.

Didn't take us long to get ourselves tangled up in Apache Junction.  And why didn't we use our Garmin GPS to find the State Park??  Because we never thought to bring it along.  OK, lets check our map.  Never brought that either!!  At one point stopped for a traffic light Kelly hollered over to the next driver, "are we on the road to the Lost Dutchman?"  The driver hollered back some directions & off we went totally lost all over again.  Another stop at a convenience store got us turned around & pointed in the right direction again & finally after about half an hour of floundering around we were on the road to the Lost Dutchman State Park.

SNAPPED A FEW QUICK PICS OF SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN AT THE PARK'S MAIN GATE FIGURING IT WAS THE ONLY ONE'S I WOULD GET

It was about this point when a very real & practical thought occurred to me.  I knew there were only 35 sites at this Park.  It was Spring Break & we were in a condensed area with millions of people.  What were the chances of finding a vacancy.  Zero to none I figured.  In fact when we pulled into the Park office parking lot I got out of the car with my camera figuring I might as well grab a few shots of Superstition Mountain before we have to turn around & leave in a few minutes.  Meanwhile, Kelly, ever the optimist headed into the office.  She was at the counter with one lady ahead of her who was renewing her stay.  Kelly asked the Ranger over the woman's shoulder if there were any sites available.  Yes, he said, one site left.  A big Class A rolled up to the window at the exact same time & the driver asked the Ranger if there were any sites open.  Kelly quickly hollered over the ladies shoulder to the Ranger...."we'll take that site!!  Had Kelly walked in that office 30 seconds later we would have been sleeping in  a parking lot somewhere tonight.  Yaaaaaaay Kelly:))  But you know what.....I still felt kinda bad for that guy in the Class A.  I knew the disappointment he was feeling as he had to get his rigged turned around & headed back out of the Park.

The Ranger suggested before we go pick up our rig we should drive to our RV site & put something there to give it the appearance it has been spoken for so that's what we did.  Had a couple lawn chairs in the car so placed them on the site before leaving.

                            

Next problem we had was to find our way back to wherever it was we left the rig.  We had been so messed up coming through Apache Junction that we didn't have a hope of finding our way back through there.  Luckily the Ranger came to our rescue & told us off a short cut that avoided Apache Junction altogether so we happily hopped into the car & headed back to the Gold Canyon area, retrieved the rig, & followed the shortcut back to the State Park.  Yaaaaaay Ranger:))

This park has no water or electricity at the sites but that's fine with us.  Only $15 a night & we totally lucked out getting a pull through site on an outside loop.  For having to be in a Park we couldn't have a better spot.  Superstition Mountain towers over us with it's 3,000 foot spires.  Saguraro Cactus, Palo Verde Trees, & all kinds of assorted greenery surround us.

So, that brings me up to right now.  It's 8 o'clock Monday night, I've got my eyelids pinned to my eyebrows with a cactus needles trying to keep them open.  I am about 3.2 nano-seconds away from complete unconsciousness, I'm behind on my email correspondence, behind on my blog reading, & just so plum cranky right now I could eat a big ugly rock!!  But you know what...... despite a frustrating start to the day we sure lucked out by the end of the day & for that, we truly are Happy Campers tonight..........:))

OUR DIGS AT THE FOOT OF SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN, ARIZONA

GROANER'S CORNER:(( 

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

FROM THE SOUNDS OF QUIET BIRDS TO THE SOUNDS OF NOISY GUNFIRE!!

OUR TEMPORARY NEW DIGS SOUTHEAST OF PHOENIX SOMWHERE

This post is coming to you from somewhere in the Sonoran desert southeast of Phoenix, Arizona.  We do not have a strong Verizon signal so I hope I'll be able to get this post published.  We do have about a dozen TV channels with the antennae, & cell phone coverage is good.

                          

MUST HAVE BEEN ABOUT A HUNDRED OF THESE MILITARY VEHICLES ON THIS TRAIN NEAR YUMA TODAY

We did not have a good night back in Yuma last night because of the miserable wind that harassed us again beginning about midnight.  The winds were bad all afternoon but backed off around 7 so we thought that was the end of it, but 4 ours later we were scrambling to get our slides in again!!

The winds brought in cooler air instead of warmer air so we had to dress warm this morning before heading out.  I had put things away & hooked the car up Saturday afternoon so by 8 a.m. California time we had the big wheels rolling eastbound.  Twenty five minutes later we crossed the Arizona/California State line in Yuma & never looked back.

We had the wind at our backs & the traffic was light on Interstate 8 all the way to Gila Bend.  Not a cloud in the big blue sky & the temps were soon up into the high 70's.  It just felt sooooo great to be on the road again heading somewhere.  I love watching the scenery going by & I'm always scanning the mountain tops for familiar landmarks.  This was our 4th time on this stretch of road but the first time heading east.  Kelly was at the computer desk behind me handling emails, the dogs wandered around with lots of room, & I enjoyed hot coffee with a tuna sandwich that Kelly brought up from the galley.  Aw yes, ya just gotta love this whole Motorhome concept:))   Yellow & purple flowers abounded along the roadway & it was really nice to see the greening hills & mountains of spring.

Gila Bend is always an oasis stop for us because the north end Shell station is so easy to get into for dumping tanks & taking on water.  We picked up a load of gas here as well.   First fill up in a month & it relieved us of $150.00.  It was high noon & by 12:30 we were headed east for Casa Grande.

There is a nice boondocking spot called, Jim Kortsen West Pinal Park about 20 miles west of Casa Grande right on I-8 & that's where we were headed.  We stopped here for an overnighter a year ago & also back in February this year on our way west.  But, by the time we got to Jim Kortsen I had already changed my mind.  It was only 1:30 in the afternoon, traffic was still light & we were rolling right along so figured we might as well head on through to a place southeast of Phoenix called Florence Junction.  Kelly had found a boondocking spot on the internet just of highway 60 so after a Safeway grocery stop in Coolidge we turned off the highway onto Queen Valley road.  This road led a few miles to a bumpy dirt road & we followed this for a mile or so until we finally found an even more bumpy spot to pull in.  We were proudly able to add some nice new desert pin striping to the sides of the rig & car as we wiggled & squiggled in amongst the creosote bushes & mesquite trees.  We've got more dust & dirt on this old rig than they have in the average gravel pit.  Give me that good old weathered look any day as opposed to that squeaky clean looking dealership lot look.  Yesireeeeeeeee:))

This is also the first 'new territory' we have been to on this trip & oh how nice that is.  As soon as we got east of Casa Grande today I once again felt that tinge of excitement returning as I looked around me with that little boy wonderment at new horizons, mountains, valleys, & canyons.   I just love seeing new stuff.

This is one of those good news/bad news sites.  First the good news.  We are surrounded by green hills, mountains, Saguaro cactus, flowers, & all kinds of green vegetation.  No people, no RV's & the scenery goes on forever.  Now, the bad news!!  We are also surrounded by gunfire at the moment.  This whole beautiful area is obviously a hang out for younger people & a popular shooting range.  Shotgun shells litter the ground as well as all the other usual litter & paraphernalia we always associate with younger people.  Broken glass & garbage strewn about.  Shattered bits of clay pigeons are everywhere so that tells us it's a popular area for skeet shooting.  As I'm typing this I can hear shotguns going off somewhere to our right & to our left someone is firing with a high powered rifle.  So instead of birds & the quiet sounds of nature, we have that horrid sound of buzzing ATV's, dirt bikes, shouts, & of course the old American standby here in the west................ gunfire!!  But, am I complaining....................??  Well, of course I am!!  And do we wish we were in an RV Park right now.....not a chance!!!!!!

Tomorrow we plan to not stray far from the rig.  We'll climb back aboard the internet & see if we can find ourselves a better spot because we plan to do a bunch of day trips in the car around the area & we would feel more comfortable leaving the rig in a more humanly mature place.  We have  Apache Junction, Superstition Mountain, Lost Dutchman Mine, the 120 mile Apache Trail Loop & other spots in mind.  I will also try & remember to put in our location co-ordinates tomorrow.

And just wanted to mention something else about the 'Blogs We Follow' post I had in last night's blog.   I never flush anybody's blog down the drain, I just drop them into a desktop folder.  I should have been more clear about that last night. I often pop in there, pull up somebody's blog, & see how they're doing & what they are up to.  I also have people's blogs in that folder who I've never had on our site too.  If you were on our list & don't see yourself on there now, it just means I've dropped you into my desktop file for awhile.  You have not been flushed:))

And one last word about contentment.....I'm just one of those people with a restless soul.  Never content for very long wherever I am or with whatever I'm doing.  I've always been like that & it looks like I'm just stuck with it.  But, it's OK.....I just like to complain about it once & awhile to keep myself on track.............10-4:))

GROANER'S CORNER:((  What do you call a mushroom who buys everyone drinks and is the life of the party?
A fun-gi.

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.